It's Not Me (2025)

Only Leo Carax could offer up something like this- a forty minute tour-de-mayhem autobiographical piece of cinema that is as conceptual as any of his feature length films. The man behind one of the finest pieces of cinema this millennium has offered with 2012's monumental Holy Motors, It's Not Me (or C'est Pas Moi if you prefer) is absolutely not the place to start with Carax if you're unfamiliar with his work- but that certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it.

This is a cine-college essay of sorts, with several short sequences from Carax's own filmography, but to call this self indulgent would be foolish- and some way wide of the mark. This is an extremely playful self-portrait that also offers up some fascinating questions about fascism, evil- history itself even- and how, why and what that information is that we're given. It's also provocative in the way it intersperses these ideas along with the history of cinema itself, weaving Carax's own cinematic past into the anti-narrative.

All in all, you're left with something rather brilliant, even if the whole thing might very well need a few viewings to fully realise its intentions or inferences. Even then a lot of what's on screen is designed to make you think- as well as simply offering you a rather joyous- if deranged- celebration of cinema.

Considering it's only forty odd minutes long, it packs a huge amount in. Our history as humans is up for discussion, brilliantly disguised as an avant-garde autobiography from one of cinemas most intriguing film makers- and yet we get that too. The influence on Carax from someone like Jean-Luc Goddard is undeniable, and yet Carax pushes the boundaries of experimental film making further.

And with It's Not Me, he questions the morals of art in depicting the world; yet at the same time offers us an insight into his own life- all the while questioning what exactly the correlation is between what we're all told, and what the truth is. But what you get from this, is entirely up to you- and maybe that's the point Carax is trying to make. 8.3/10